The first scene in Dead Space Extraction, after some expository video chatting with one Lexine Murdoch, in as over the shoulder view of a man clad in mining armor extremely reminiscent of the protagonist of the original Dead Space, Isaac Clarke. If you didn’t know any better, for a brief moment you’d think that was your playable character but then the camera pulls away, the IR cursor comes on screen, and you realize you are actually playing an on-rails shooter like Virtua Cop. That’s the conundrum of Visceral Games’ first Wii effort. It does so much right, and goes so far out of its way to get you to believe that it is Dead Space at every turn. While this enthusiasm is appreciated and enjoyable it also serves to highlight that Extraction isn’t Dead Space. It’s better in some ways like more immersive storytelling and worse in others like less open-ended gameplay. If you can get past that, you’ll find an excellent, well-crafted sci-fi horror guided first-person experience.

Unlike so many other rail shooters, Extraction uses embedded perspective and complete control over the pace and sequence of the game to create one of the most symbiotic combinations of cinema and interactivity seen in a video game. That’s not as good as it sounds, things tend to slow down to too often, but it lets the game pull off so many unique tricks that having permanently integrated cutscenes wasn’t such a bad thing. It also helps that the story itself is pretty good too. Playing out a lot like Aliens, or perhaps a grittier more realistic Metroid, Extraction follows a group of four well voice-acted characters that survive a mysterious plague of insanity, suicide and violent alien creatures on a mining colony only to be stranded on a nearby ship filled with the same infestation. Along with the terrible animated movie Dead Space Downfall, and the decent, uniquely drawn, Dead Space motion comics (included as unlockables in Extraction), this game serves as a prequel to the original Dead Space so there are only so many ways the action could play out. The escape and survival storyline of Extraction ends up being fairly similar to the movie and the comics. That being said, as a horror movie it manages to be serious without being unintentionally stupid. Your crew is a nice mix of who you would want on your space zombie killing team and who you would likely be stuck with. Plus, at any time your character could abruptly die as part of the story which is surprising and sort of unsettling the first time it happens. Be on the look out for some cameos of characters important to the plot of the first Dead Space too.

Compared to many other games, Dead Space Extraction places a heavy emphasis on story. However, that does not mean the EA, Visceral Games, (and Eurocom too but keep that quiet) phoned it in on what already must be a relatively easy game type to produce. Against my wishes, rail-shooters have this reputation for being a lesser genre for some reason. Granted, although there are things like branching pathways and brief moments of full camera movement, much of the mobility and control is taken away from the player and video games are a lot about control, but Extraction makes up for this by applying Dead Space concepts in order to create new, exciting and innovative gunplay. Aside from humans and their vulnerable heads, enemies in Extraction must have their limbs removed in order to be killed. As the enemy types vary, limbs become more numerous and more oddly placed. In order to defeat this monsters, player use a variety of guns with a variety of effects not usually seen in the genre. While you do have a pistol with unlimited ammo, you also have limited and specialized weapons like fire, lightning, telekinesis for item grabbing and box launching, glowworms for lighting up dark rooms, and the ability to slow down time. Each weapon can be upgraded and has an alternate fire accessed by tilting the Wii remote. For example, the plasma cutter fires horizontally by default and vertically when tilting the Wii remote vertically. This adds a satisfying layer of depth and strategy to a genre criticized for being shallow and mindless. It all comes to a head in one final shootout against legions of “necromorphs”. Along the way you’ll also be using your arsenal to build barricades, saw through strange bacterial growth, repair electrical panels, and hop between platforms in zero gravity. If you want to try your hand at mastering the combat without treading through the story again, there are also ten challenge rooms, one for each story mission, with waves of enemies waiting to be “strategically dismembered”. 

There is something about Extraction that occurs throughout the whole game but struck me particularly at the second to last chapter, the best one in the game. All rail-shooters are scripted, but this one is so well-scripted that you thank it for being so. Call of Duty 4 has the quality too but not to the same degree. Hallucinations happen often enough that you don’t know when to expect them. Music cues happen perfectly whether they are a creepy version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or dead silence while fighting a boss in the vacuum of space. Though on that subject, boss fights in on-rails shooters continue to be dumb since you always just end up going in a circle. But, being able to effectively apply cinematic technique and flair so commonly seen in movies to game is still quite a feat. Perhaps why that’s Uncharted 2 is getting so much praise, because it manages to do that without being on-rails. Essential to this are the graphics which high quality for a Wii game like most of its rail-shooters and their good graphics making up for small scope. Unfortunately, once you reach the Ishimura mining ship of the first game, the environments and levels start to blur into each other. The used, decaying future comes across nicely and stuff like the blurry vision caused by the dust and the green haze caused by your helmet, take advantage of the first person perspective in a way reminiscent of Metroid Prime. There are some oddities though, like being able to fire a gun while both of your hands can be seen doing climbing down a ladder, but minor inconsistencies like those hardly taken away from the strength of this “guided first person experience”.

When I first heard that Dead Space was coming to the Wii I was extremely happy. I was in need of some quality third-person shooting and sci-fi is kind of my thing. Then I heard that it would essentially be a dumbed-down rail shooter and was crushed. After playing Dead Space Extraction for the seven hours it lasts, I can safely say that it is anything but dumb. It’s a shining example of one way you should do this type of game on a console, House of the Dead Overkill being the other end of the spectrum. However, I still wish EA and Visceral had not skimped out and made a real Dead Space for the Wii instead. Resident Evil 4 worked beautifully on the Wii and Dead Space is essentially Resident Evil 4 with more modern, western controls and space zombies instead of Spanish zombies. Still, games should be judged mostly on their own merits, and with that in mind Dead Space Extraction is most definitely game one should experience, because you’re not going to get that experience anywhere else.

Rating: 4 out of 5
- Jordan Minor

Posted by admin on 11/25 at 11:01 AM
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